


Scrooge This!

by steveelotaku



Category: Chaos! Comics, Child's Play/Chucky (Movies), Evil Dead - All Media Types, Hack/Slash, The Crow (Comics)
Genre: Angst with a Happy Ending, Christmas, F/F, Gen, Hurt/Comfort, Inspired by A Christmas Carol
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-25
Updated: 2019-12-25
Packaged: 2021-02-25 20:34:33
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,946
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21951532
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/steveelotaku/pseuds/steveelotaku
Summary: Cassie Hack endures the inevitable Charles Dickens tribute when she refuses to watch The Muppet Christmas Carol with Vlad.
Relationships: Cassie Hack/Margaret Crump
Kudos: 2





	Scrooge This!

“But Cassie, hurr, why do we not watch _The Muppets_ this Christmas? The Christmas Carol is classic, no?”

Cassie Hack was not having a good Christmas. Oh, certainly the snow was coming down, but for her that meant half her favourite outfits were suddenly unseasonable. The same carols over and over on the radio, driven into her skull like a knife. All the happy families, and she was stuck with Vlad in a cheap motel, looking over the pay-per-view. They’d gotten paid fairly recently, so as a Christmas treat Vlad was allowed to pick one thing.

“ _You_ can watch it,” Cassie deadpanned. “Like I need a bunch of fuzzy lil’ bastards telling me to have a Merry fuckin’ Christmas.”

“You are what they call a Grinch,” Vlad replied. “What will you do if not watching Muppets? Will you, perhaps, go brood about the sad things?”

Cassie punched a pillow.

“Goddamnit, Vlad! It’s not my favourite time of year, okay? Seeing everyone in the spirit of Christmas just pisses me off. I know by the time the morning rolls around it’ll be back to the road again, hunting down whatever seasonal fuck is latecoming. I mean, fuck, I spent today beating a Santa killer to a pulp in front of some kids. Some good I’m doing, huh? What gift could I even give anyone that’d be worth it? I’m a broke-ass bitch in some thrift shop goth slutwear, okay?”

“Hurr. But what of pieces of earth, and good will to men?”

“Peace on earth? Ain’t much chance of that. Sometimes I think the world would be better off not caring about me. Bah fucking humbug and all that shit.”

“You have love. Mar—”

“Don’t even fucking say her name. I…I…”

Tears welled up in Cassie’s eyes, and she stormed out of the motel, running to her van and slamming the door behind her as she lay down in the sleeping bag in the back, tossing her “NOW I HAVE A MACHINE GUN, HO HO HO” sweater aside and removing and folding her skirt up.

“What do you know, Vlad? You don’t know what it’s like to just fucking hurt everyone you love!”

She threw herself into her dreams, hoping to at least take her mind off things.

Instead, she was awakened by a tapping on the van door.

“Buzz off, asshole!” Cassie muttered. “It’s Christmas fucking Eve, so unless you’re Santa Claus bringing me a new bat, go beg somewhere else!”

“Now is that any way to talk to an old friend?” came a dark voice.

Cassie sat up, sliding the door open. Standing at the door, bound with iron chains, and glowing like a demonic Christmas tree, was Ernest Fairchild.

Evil Ernie.

Cassie fumbled for her bat, but it was nowhere to be found.

“Uh-uh,” Ernie said. “You’re here to learn an important lesson, and I ain’t gonna fight someone as cute as you, Cassie. Right, Smiley?”

“Yeah, no way,” his demonic button affirmed. “See, we hear you’ve got a bad attitude about this Christmas thing.”

“And that’s why you hoofed it here? To give me a patronizing Christmas card greeting?” Cassie asked, incredulous. “Look, there ain’t any mistletoe, Ernie, so get lost.”

“Well, that’s a shame,” Ernie said, eyeing her appreciatively. “Still, can’t help but feel Mistress Hel might get a little jealous if I kissed ya. Even if it’s just for old times’ sake.”

Cassie realized she was in a very skimpy black bra and panties, the front of which said “HO HO HOE”.

“Keep staring, Ernie, and I’m gonna shove that button up your ass.”

“I ain’t starin’. Can’t promise Smiley ain’t. Anyway, the reason I’m here. Look, you ain’t been the same since I had a crush on ya, and I think I know why. You’re bitter. You’re alone. It’s a fuckin’ front, and Smiley ‘n me know it. So we’ve brought three ghosts to come give you a little chat. It’s standard Christmas special shit. I’d love to just take you out for a night on the town, but someone said I gotta be your Jacob Marley, so…’

“And here I thought the chains were a kink thing,” Cassie deadpanned. “Look. Ernie. Go find Chastity and Purgatori and shit. I don’t need the undead cowboy pimp act here, so go preach somewhere else, Kid Rock.”

“That almost hurt, Cassie,” Ernest said, laughing. “Anyway, I’m gone. Miss you lots, cutie.”

Cassie’s head hit the pillow, along with a string of profanity long enough to put her on the naughty list for a long time.

An hour later, she was interrupted by a sharp knock.

“Ugh, who is it?”

“The King, baby,” came a voice. “Open up.”

Gently sliding open the door, she saw Ashley J. Williams standing with his chainsaw and shotgun, wearing a brown robe.

“Ash? The fuck are—”

“Christmas special,” he said. “Don’t worry about it. Now I understand you’re bein’ a real Grinch this year. What could have jingled your bells hard enough to get you so Scrooged up?”

“You know me. Do the fucking math.”

“Oh, I do know you,” Ash replied. “And you’re not normally such a bitch about it. Does Uncle Ash need to give ya some sugar?”

“I’d rather drink expired eggnog.”

Ash laughed.

“Oh, but I’m sure there’s someone you’d rather be kissing, huh? Somebody you _walked out on_.”

Cassie fumed.

“You don’t get to invoke her fucking name.”

“I’m the Ghost of Christmas Past, baby. It’s kinda in the job description. Let me take you back…”

She found herself looking at the Christmas she’d spent with Ash and Margaret, not long after Vlad had first died. She saw their adopted daughter. She saw the life she wished she had, and the life she knew could never be.

Tears welled up in her eyes.

“Stop showing me this! I _know_ I wasted this! I know I’m a monster!”

Ash sighed.

“That’s an excuse and you fucking know it! Look, the bad bitch goth girl act may fool the Hot Topic crowd, but you can’t fool the Chosen One, and let me tell you this—you at least owe her a phone call! An apology! Make shit right with her! Stop running and crying to “Blue Christmas”!”

“I…”

A bell rang.

“What?” Ash asked. “That’s all the time I get? Oh, you octopus-looking fuck, I’ll trim your tree—”

His ranting was cut off as he vanished.

Cassie, sighing, tossed her head and fell asleep again.

Another hour later, a knock came on her door.

“Cassie? It is Vlad. I am worried.”

Cassie threw open the door, but instead found Vlad with a lit Advent wreath on his head and wearing a green robe.

“Vlad, the fuck? What are you wearing?!”

“I do not know. Apparently, this is what all Ghosts of Christmas Present wear. It baffles me. I have no paper or bow, so how can I be Ghost of a Present? Hurr.”

“Oh, I get it,” Cassie sighed. “I’m still having this stupid _Christmas Carol_ dream. Go on. Tell me how I fucked up the present.”

“Well, you know,” Vlad said. “You do not watch _The Muppets._ You sit and pout and cry. Santa Claus does not visit sad and pouty children.”

“Ugh, kids…lil’ ankle biters. Spare me.”

“Hurr. Yes, spare me. Two kids are biting my ankles. I think they are Ignorance and Want, but they say their names are Chucky and Pooch.”

Chucky the doll crawled from beneath Vlad’s robe, riding Pooch.

“Ugh, take a bath, mutant creep!” Chucky spat. “Hey. Cassie. Been a while.”

“Not long enough, you plastic piece of shit.”

“Have your tits gotten bigger? I swear you’ve gone up a cup.”

Cassie, crimson, pulled a blanket from nearby and wrapped around herself.

“Stop gawking. What’s your point?”

Pooch sighed.

“Pooch worries about master. Pooch is dead, Pooch knows this, poor Pooch. But Pooch sees how others suffer without kindness. Pooch is Want.”

“And I’m fuckin’ Ignorance. Keep being your worst self, Cassie. Be a big prick and nobody can hurt ya, right? Hey, if you’re really desperate to drive everyone away, let me make you into a nice Cassie doll. You can kill people and not even feel bad, ‘cause you ain’t one anymore! Just let those angsty impulses go, hot stuff. Keep shovin’ em away. Just like the whole damn world you hate so much.”

Vlad sighed.

A bell rang, and Vlad vanished, taking Chucky and Pooch with him.

Cassie was shivering at this point. Chucky was normally little more than an annoyance, but something he’d said this time had really gotten to her. Was she really being that much of an ass? Increasingly, her bitter façade stung, and she felt more tears fall.

At 3 AM, the final knock came.

“Suddenly, there came a tapping, as if someone gently rapping…”

“Marcus?” Cassie asked, nervously.

Marcus Grieves, one of the hosts of the Crow that Cassie had recently dealt with, stood before her.

“Oh, Cassie…you’re not going to like this. Not at all.”

“There’s a lot I don’t fuckin’ like, Crow-boy.”

Marcus laughed softly and mirthlessly.

“I am the Ghost of Christmas Yet to Come. And I come to show you a grave sight.”

“You’re gonna show me a gravesite. Lose the puns.”

“Well, then I guess we’d better _carrion_ and get this over with.”

The Crow led her onward to a small, bare, unmarked patch of earth.

“What the fuck? I don’t even get a tombstone?” Cassie asked, horrified. “Who buried me? Vlad would never have—”

“Vlad did,” Marcus said, solemnly.

She saw a vision next to Marcus, one of Vlad hacking her to pieces after she’d slaughtered a bunch of innocents. She saw an earlier vision, one of her stabbing Vlad, and ranting:

“We’re not friends, Vlad! We never were! If we were, you would have put me out of my misery earlier! I’m a monster! Get that through your thick skull!”

Cassie gasped.

“No…please…no…”

Running towards Marcus, Cassie tripped, and fell into her own grave. A dark, hooded Vlad, gas mask lenses glowing red, began to shovel dirt over her.

“Hurr. Goodbye, Cassie. You wanted to be forgotten, so I will not remember you. Margaret will not, either. Ernie has forgotten too. Merry Christmas, monster. You are finally what you say you are. Hope you are happy. I will miss you.”

“Spirit! Please! I will change! I will!” Cassie pleaded, as The Crow departed.

She awoke so violently that Vlad jerked back in horror as he opened the van’s door.

“Vlad!” Cassie exclaimed, sobbing. “Oh, thank god, Vlad! I just…I…”

“Hurr. Nightmare? Lunch Lady?”

“No…” Cassie said, softly. “I just had the Dickens scared out of me. C’mon…let’s go back upstairs. I wanna watch _The Muppet Christmas Carol._ I wanna be by your side. I don’t wanna be alone this Christmas.”

Nothing further was said as Cassie dressed and followed Vlad to the motel room.

Just around the corner, however, Mary Shelley Lovecraft rubbed her tentacles together in satisfaction.

“Finally, some _literature_ in that poor, deprived girl’s life.”

Ash, Ernie, and Marcus’s ghost waited nearby.

“Hey, we _are_ getting paid for this, right?” Ash said. “My boss gave me a pudding of the month club membership instead of a Christmas bonus.”

The tentacled villain sighed.

“What have we learned? Surely money isn’t everything—”

“Look, fishsticks, Cassie wasn’t greedy, just lonely. Me, on the other hand? I could use some cash. We’re all freezing our Christmas balls off trying to play three ghosts, and—”

Paying the corporeal members of the group, she sent them on their way, and sighed.

“This season gets less jolly every year,” she muttered.


End file.
